Recycling 101
Let’s talk… recycling!
Ever since this little symbol ♻️was introduced in the 60s, many major US cities use recycling as a metric for overall sustainability. But, should we? What does it actually mean to recycle?
Today, recycling looks like one of these three things:
1) Energy recovery —> this means we burn material and capture the methane gas released to use for energy or fuel, also called Waste to Energy or WtE;
2) Pyrolysis —> this means we heat material through a chemical process so the material chemical cocktail degrades back into its original state;
3) Mechanical recycling —> this is how most municipalities in the US recycle. Material is sorted at recycling facilities and shipped to processing agents to be ground or pelletized so it can be mixed with virgin material to create a recycled material.
None of these methods provide enough energy to make up for the costs of creating the product in the first place. Though many municipalities (including Seattle) measure sustainability by how much waste is diverted to these methods from the landfill, is that the really the measurement we should be using? What does sustainability in our waste systems actually mean today?
Recovery 1 is a construction and demolition mechanical recycling center, meaning they sort and process materials on-site. Contractors pay per load to dump 50-60 truckloads of material per day: primarily gypsum, wood, wallboard, mixed-ridge plastic, cardboard and vinyl.
Gypsum, a mineral that looks like a white rock and found in plaster, cement, and wallboard, is ground into a fine powder and sold to whomever is buying that day: cement factories or fertilizer for mushroom farms. Wood is shredded and sold as wood chips, but wood that has laminate, paint, or nails is unable to be processed at scale and is typically landfilled. Recovery 1 has a high diversion rate, meaning that they only send about 25% of what they receive to the landfill. Even though Recovery 1 is a recycler, the majority of their revenue is from fees that contractors pay to dump their waste, because gypsum powder and wood chips have such low profit margins - IF they can find a buyer that day.